The Queen Bees in Business

The more women you have in senior management roles, the better your company will perform. This is the conclusion from a major global study that examines the correlation between gender and company performance.

Credit Suisse’s “Gender 3000: The Reward for Change” report, shows that global companies with more women in decision-making roles generate higher returns and better profits. The report identifies 27,000 senior managers at over 3000 companies around the world.

It is the second report by the investment bank that finds evidence that companies with a higher participation of women in decision-making roles generate higher returns on equity, while running more conservative balance sheets.

“Where women account for the majority in the top management, the businesses show superior sales growth, high cash flow returns on investments and lower leverage,” it says.

Do women promote women? The report examines the much debated notion of a “Queen Bee” syndrome which argues that women who have made it to senior positions actively seek to exclude other women from promotions into top management.

The data in the CSG 3000 disputes this idea; the findings show that female CEOs globally are significantly more likely to surround themselves with other women in senior roles. Female CEOs are 50% more likely than male CEOs to have a female CFO and 55% more likely to have women running business units.

These findings also firmly reject the notion of a “Queen Bee” syndrome in the Microfinance and Venture capital sectors. In fact, 25-30% of microfinance CEOs are women and around 50% of the lending officers are women. Female led microfinance institutions are more focused on female clients (59% openly target women versus 43% for male CEOs), have a greater share of female board members (44% versus 23%), are more likely to have a female chair of the board (43% vs 16%), and have more female clients (76% versus 60%). It is clear that female-led microfinance institutions attract more females in management and more female clients.

While female representation in partner positions in venture capital remains very low, VCs founded by women have a much higher percentage of female partners than the industry average (43% vs. 7-8%). Additionally, female founded VCs tend to invest more in women entrepreneurs with 17.4% of funding rounds going to female owned startups vs the industry average of 12%. Women are clearly supporting and promoting women not only in the corporate sector but also in the microfinance and VC worlds.